The Tennessee Valley Authority is still getting used to the idea it could be privatized. At a meeting Thursday top TVA officials said they’d listen and take part in discussions of a possible sale, as mentioned last week in President Obama’s budget.
The board of director’s Peter Mahurin called the idea a ‘trial balloon,’ and argued monopoly services like power are best provided through public ownership. He wondered aloud if TVA might be sold to private electric companies.
“I guess when you hear about something like this, the immediate reaction – they’re going to sell us to Duke or Southern or somebody and the whole structure will change – might there be changes? I don’t know. Might it continue another 80 years just like it has? I doubt it.”
TVA’s new President Bill Johnson was more guarded in his remarks, noting the agency is a creature of the federal government.
“We take direction from the administration, so we – inside TVA we don’t engage in guesses about political posturing or anything else.”
This is what our owner wants to do, Johnson says, and so we will participate in the process.
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